Author: Roy Eassa
Date: 10:54:12 05/31/02
Linux Gets Friendlier Stephen Manes, 06.10.02, 12:00 AM ET Since its introduction as a free operating system in 1991, the Linux variant of Unix has become such a popular way to run servers that a business has grown up around supplying, supporting and charging for it. Even IBM has gotten into the act. Now, frustrated by a monopoly whose innovation in the face of slower growth amounts to finding more efficient ways of extracting money from captive customers, users are beginning to wonder whether Linux could supplant Windows as a cheaper solution for desktop machines. My disappointed but hopeful conclusion: For normal human beings, not yet. But it's an outside possibility in corporate situations where support is at hand, and it's getting tantalizingly closer for the masses. A couple of years ago installing Linux was an exercise in nonstop profanity. This time when I tried two different versions, both worked--mostly. The popular Red Hat is aimed squarely at Linux veterans, and the new version, 7.3, comes on seven CDs for $60. When the lengthy installation process finally ends, a warehouseful of software has been crammed onto your hard drive, including not one but two separate user interfaces and a program that times the steeping of tea. But that cornucopia of confusing stuff will mostly give newcomers a headache. Desktop/LX, $30 from Lycoris, a tiny startup founded in Microsoft's hometown of Redmond, Wash., comes on only one CD. Its less-is-more philosophy is aimed at users not necessarily familiar with Linux, so it looks as much like Windows as possible: Install it on a Windows machine, and it even swipes the desktop background. Whereas Red Hat asks you to choose between LILO and Grub for your bootloader and Gnome and KDE for your operating environment, Desktop/LX has mercifully decided all that for you. And though it includes far less than Red Hat, it still provides plenty, including an office productivity suite, two Web browsers, two e-mail clients, software for playing and burning CDs, a bunch of games and lots more. But frustration is part of the package. Though Linux can be installed alongside Windows so that you can choose either system at startup, neither Desktop/LX nor Red Hat includes Windows software to make that kind of installation easy. On my Sony PC, neither was able to produce audio, except from the fan that neither could silence. Desktop/LX made it simple to access Windows systems on my network; Red Hat never managed that feat. The DVD software that comes with Desktop/LX can't play encrypted discs, which means most of them. Neither system managed to get my printer working properly, and installing other peripherals can be a trial because manufacturers' Linux support is so spotty. When a digital camera I tried didn't work, a Lycoris guru e-mailed that all I might have to do was "issue a command like: mount -tvfat/dev/sda1 /mnt/<location you want>." That's about as far from plug-and-play as you can get, and completely unacceptable outside the world of hobbyists and corporate support desks. And, like the other things that don't quite work, it is unfortunately typical. Though a charmingly unbusinesslike whimsy full of fanciful names and icons now pervades the parts of Linux you see at first glance, incomprehensible messages and commands lurk millimeters below. Try to get help from a particular program, and you'll often be sent to a general help screen that doesn't help at all--or refers to things that are second nature to Linux experts but gibberish to everyone else. Want to run Windows programs under Linux? Software called Wine, under development by volunteers since 1993, is meant to do just that, but its Web site admits that it is still full of "bugs and unimplemented features" and that "Most applications still do not work correctly." One Wine adaptation, Codeweavers' $55 Crossover Office, lets Linux run Microsoft Office applications--but only certain older versions, and, in my experience, badly. Using Word and Excel was frustrating when the cursor insisted on disappearing or changing to an hourglass. Installing the Microsoft applications required a visit to the Codeweavers support site and invoking two obscure commands, one of which included a typographical error that kept it from running. Screen fonts looked horrible. Though the company says it is addressing these problems, if you want to run Windows programs, you're better off just running Windows. Wine also figures in the forthcoming Lindows operating system, another Linux variant emphasizing Windows compatibility. For now it's hard to imagine who would pay $99 for a one-year membership, when the product is in a "sneak preview" release that the company's Web site admits "is not meant to be used in a production environment" and has functions that "will not operate properly." Even if it does work, who's going to spring for a new operating system when one comes packaged with every PC? Maybe someone fed up with the high price of Windows applications. If Windows and its apps were cheap and trouble free, Linux wouldn't stand a chance on the desktop. What it will take to compete there is a Lycoris-like focus on the user, but with greater rigor, better hardware support, more professionally designed software and computer makers willing to deliver Windows-less computers full of flawless functionality at prices that substantially undercut the Windows/Office monopoly. Fortunately, smart Linuxheads can learn from a fine Unix-based system that keeps users from having to understand the ins and outs of the arcane underpinnings--unless they really, really want to. I refer them to Apple's OS X. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0610/134_print.html
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